Chinese music group trying to hit Baidu where it hurts: ads

Chinese search engine Baidu is under more pressure to stop deep-linking to …

The Music Copyright Society of China is putting pressure on popular Chinese search engine Baidu to abandon its piracy-enabling ways, or else advertisers may pull their ads from the site. The MCSC referred to Baidu as "the largest and most incorrigible purveyor of pirated music in China," and said that working against the site has become a common goal of the music industry.

Almost anyone who has tossed an MP3 file onto a web server knows that if Baidu hasn't found it yet, it will (I recently discovered that Baidu was helping Chinese Internet users leech terabytes of bandwidth from my web host by linking to a random song I made with GarageBand). Baidu is infamous for deep-linking directly to MP3 files in its search results, allowing users to simply use the search engine to find a plethora of (mostly) copyrighted music.

It's no surprise, then, that Baidu happens to be at the center of several lawsuits for deep-linking MP3s and enabling copyright infringement. The MCSC filed a lawsuit against Baidu in January of this year, seeking CN¥1 million (about US$140,000) in damages. Additionally, three music labels—Universal Music Ltd, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Hong Kong) Ltd., and Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd.—are together seeking maximum damages of CN¥500,000 (roughly US$71,000) per track on at least 127 tracks, totaling CN¥63,500,000 (US$9 million) in damages. That could just be the minimum, however, as the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry says Baidu may face damages in the billions.

"We will take concerted efforts to marginalise and blacklist pirates by resorting to not only legal actions, but also business and administrative initiatives, public opinion and other means," MCSC director-general Qu Jingming told reporters today, according to the AFP. He added that the music industry group has urged advertisers to "carefully consider whether they should continue to place advertisements on pirating media."

The Chinese government recently proclaimed that it has been making increased efforts to crack down on piracy, especially in anticipation of the Olympic Games this summer. Officials said that the state had convicted 4,322 people for piracy in 2007, and that it would make a special effort to ensure that the Olympic trademark would be protected. If the courts eventually rule against Baidu in these two lawsuits, the US government and the World Trade Organization will likely feel that China is truly making a concerted effort to curb the rampant copyright infringement that the country is known for.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui